


Epilogue: The Naming of Cats

by Kate_Lear



Series: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes [5]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 15:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17983538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Lear/pseuds/Kate_Lear
Summary: A short epilogue toIt Is No Gift I Tender, set immediately after the conclusion of that fic, in which a loose end is tied up.Not beta-read, so please let me know if you see any errors!





	Epilogue: The Naming of Cats

It was near on ten o’clock before the sun finally set, and the entire garden seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. DeBryn’s bedroom windows stood open, letting in the cool air, but the June day had been so warm that he would need nothing more than a single blanket that night.

And since he had the warmth of another body in his bed, perhaps not even that.

‘Hmm.’ Morse’s chest moved as he sighed, and DeBryn closed his eyes and concentrated on the steady beat of Morse’s heart under his cheek. Morse’s fingers scratched lightly through DeBryn’s hair, his other hand feathering circles in the small of DeBryn’s back and waking shivers of gooseflesh, until DeBryn lifted his head to rest his chin on Morse’s chest and look up at him.

In the dimness Morse’s teeth flashed in a smile.

‘Tell me again,’ Morse said, almost inaudible in the quiet room, the sleeping house.

‘I love you,’ DeBryn breathed. ‘You mean the world to me.’ He leaned up for a kiss, and ventured, ‘And I’d very much like to keep you, if I may.’

Perhaps in the daylight, or when the words had lost their sharp edges, DeBryn would be able to find some dryly sarcastic way of putting it. A pithy quote that would win him Morse’s swift, fluttering smile of genuine amusement, rather than the polite close-mouthed version he kept for others.

But here and now, with the words still so new, DeBryn could only repeat, helplessly, ‘I love you.’

‘And I love you.’ The musky scent of sex clung to Morse’s fingertips where they ghosted over DeBryn’s eyebrows, his nose. ‘You’re the one fixed point in a turning world.’

It sounded rather dull, but Morse looked soft with pleasure as he spoke. Not without reason; heaven knew Morse’s world was anything but fixed.

DeBryn squinted in the darkness. ‘I can hardly see you.’ They were only just past the longest day, but it had already been late when Morse came to find DeBryn in his office. ‘Here, let me...’

DeBryn leaned away to click on the bedside lamp, and turned back to take in the sight of Morse looking deliciously rumpled. Save that livid graze on his cheekbone, and DeBryn touched the edges of it with gentle fingertips.

‘Your poor face,’ he murmured. ‘We should have iced that, earlier.’

‘Well.’ The curl of Morse’s smile had a dirty edge to it, and his wandering hand latched onto DeBryn’s bare thigh, teasing fingers sliding upwards. ‘We were busy, earlier.’

DeBryn swallowed. Leaning against the kitchen counter in their embrace, clinging together like shipwreck victims, Morse had drawn back and kissed DeBryn as though he were trying to bruise DeBryn’s mouth. Between the emotions of the day and their mutual lingering adrenaline it had been a marvel DeBryn had had the presence of mind to get them both upstairs, rather than having Morse up against the wall.

The mattress jounced lightly, and there was a soft meow. DeBryn stirred, oddly self-conscious about lying naked under the cat’s inspection, with his lips newly tender from Morse’s fierce kisses, and their mutual release slick between their stomachs, and he shifted awkwardly. But Morse’s arm stayed firm around his waist as he held out a hand and murmured to the cat, and a moment later cool paws stepped on to DeBryn’s bare back.

That _was_ too much, and when he half-sat up the cat hopped nimbly down on the far side of Morse, at a safe distance from DeBryn’s irritation. Morse stroked its head, and rubbed its chin, and DeBryn objected weakly: ‘I hope you’re planning to wash that hand before you even think of any further activities with it.’

Because that was the hand Morse had just used, a bare twenty minutes ago, to stroke them both to orgasm, with DeBryn braced on his elbows, caught between kissing Morse and staring down at Morse’s long fingers curled around them both. And now Morse’s fingers were still faintly sticky, and it felt utterly wrong to watch him peacefully tickling the cat’s throat with them.

‘He doesn’t care,’ Morse said, glancing at DeBryn and reading his thoughts. ‘Look at him.’

And sure enough the cat’s purr was loud in the room as it leaned into Morse’s hand. DeBryn, closing his eyes to appreciate the possessive weight of Morse’s fingers idling along his nape, rather knew how it felt.

‘Have you not bought him a collar?’ DeBryn opened his eyes again to watch Morse’s thumb rubbing the cat’s throat. ‘People will think he doesn’t belong to anyone.’

Unbidden, DeBryn glanced at Morse’s bare left hand, and his happiness dimmed. ‘Indeed.’

‘And he needs a name. Unless you’ve...’ Morse glanced at DeBryn, who shook his head. ‘Well then.’

‘Call it whatever you please.’ No sense in dwelling on what couldn’t be changed, and DeBryn swallowed and rested his forehead over Morse’s heart. He already had more than any reasonable man could dare to hope for.

‘What, anything? Just like that?’ Morse, thankfully, had noticed nothing amiss, and he scratched his fingers lightly up through DeBryn’s hair. ‘No arguments? No veto?’

‘My dear chap–’ the endearment felt like the most natural thing in the world, ‘–I think at this moment you could ask me for anything in the world and be sure of getting it.’

Morse’s indrawn breath expanded his ribs before Morse’s fingers tipped DeBryn’s face up for a kiss. A kiss that lingered; DeBryn had thought himself utterly spent but by the time they separated he was smiling, his body tingling with pleasure. Perhaps another go wasn’t entirely out of the question.

‘But perhaps I should claim a veto after all,’ he said, composing himself and sliding his calf idly against Morse’s. ‘Since, or so I’m reliably informed, the naming of cats is a difficult matter.’

The sour look from Morse made him smile and kiss Morse’s collar bone unrepentantly.

‘Wagner,’ Morse said, looking at the cat.

DeBryn bit back his amusement and enquired gravely, ‘Then might one presume that anything from Eliot is out?’

Morse didn’t deign to reply. ‘Gottfried. Siegfried.’

DeBryn looked at Morse sharply, but Morse was watching the cat, stroking it idly as he considered, and DeBryn subsided. Morse would find out his middle names one day, but perhaps that day could be put off a while yet.

‘No?’ The cat curled up by Morse’s waist, still purring, and Morse’s fingers were pale against the bright ginger fur. ‘Puccini, then. Or Tolstoy. Or...no.’ Morse smiled faintly. ‘Jeoffry.’

As he watched the cat roll onto its back, shamelessly encouraging Morse to rub its stomach, DeBryn smiled and murmured, ‘“For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest”.’ But then he roused himself. ‘Morse. Much as I adore you–’ and the words came easier now, and made Morse’s eyes soften with pleasure, ‘–if you think I’m calling for Gottfried or Tolstoy from my back door then you’re mad. And besides, none of those names will suit for one rather obvious reason you’re overlooking.’

‘Oh?’

‘You’re not much of a detective.’ DeBryn braced his elbow on the pillows and rested his head on his hand, smiling at Morse’s disgruntled look. ‘You can’t name it after a _man_.’

‘Why not? I– oh.’ Morse raised his eyebrows and glanced down at the cat. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ve always called him “he”.’

It was DeBryn’s turn to raise his eyebrows. ‘Have I, though? I don’t believe so.’

Morse stirred, slightly put out. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the first time it came into the kitchen.’

‘You could have told me.’

‘Well.’ Even Morse couldn’t successfully look annoyed lying in bed naked and rumpled from sex, but even so DeBryn kissed the corner of his mouth in apology. ‘I’m telling you now. And besides...’ DeBryn swallowed, tongue-tied. ‘I wasn’t sure it would be staying.’

It hadn’t been the cat he had been unsure of, and his heart lifted when Morse stole another kiss. ‘She seems happy enough to me.’ And then he glanced nervously down at the cat again. ‘Although she’s not... not–’

‘No,’ DeBryn was quick to reassure him. ‘I took her to the vet.’

There had been problems enough with one small cat; DeBryn shuddered to contemplate the difficulties associated with a whole parcel of its offspring.

‘I see.’ The cat’s purr had stopped and, glancing down, DeBryn saw that it was asleep, gone limp and blissful under Morse’s caresses. ‘Only...’

DeBryn stretched lazily, sleepy himself, and felt with his foot for the blankets. ‘Hmm?’

‘She does look like a Jeoffry, though.’

And DeBryn could only smile, quashing a comment about unusual names that Morse was hardly likely to appreciate. Instead he merely shrugged, kissed Morse’s shoulder, and reached across Morse’s stomach to tickle the cat’s soft belly. ‘Then Jeoffry it is.’

 

\--End--


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